Chocolate Bars, Truffles and More!
If it’s shiny, explains chocolatier Aura Fajardo Quintero, the tempering of the chocolate has been done slowly and carefully, an advantage of her micro-batch artisanal method for making chocolate bars and confections for Aura’s Chocolate Bar. Fajardo Quintero came to Rhode Island in 2004 from Venezuela and enrolled at Johnson & Wales for pastry arts but found herself drawn to chocolate-making and so she got a second degree in food service management. Just before Easter 2021, she opened a full-service shop in Cranston, where she can offer not just the unusual flavor sensations of her chocolate bars but also truffles and other chocolates. In October, Fajardo Quintero won the Sam Adams “Brewing the American Dream Pitch,” a contest with prizes for budding food entrepreneurs. She sources three kinds of chocolate but favors the Venezuelan El Rey: “I grew up eating premium chocolate, not even knowing it.” The taste quality of chocolate is determined by cacao butter, instead of oils, which will make it waxy, Fajardo Quintero points out. Some of her best-sellers include Rhody-local ingredients, such as Coffee Milk, with a Borealis Coffee crunch; Sea Salt, using Newport Salt; Whiskey Cacao Nips, infused with Sons of Liberty’s Battle Cry; and Rosé Rosemary, with Anchor & Hope’s rosé Pinot.
250 East St., Cranston. AurasChocolateBar.com. Follow on social at @auraschocolate.
